JERUSALEM — Is Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu trying to revive — or kill — peace talks with the Palestinians?
That’s what President Clinton wondered when he met with Netanyahu this week in Washington and discussed the Israeli premier’s proposal to move straight into the final-status negotiations as a way to revive the ailing peace process.
If Netanyahu intends to expedite final-status talks with his right-wing government intact, then the plan may be nothing more than a public relations ploy aimed at burying the Oslo Accords — for his Cabinet includes some of the accords’ harshest critics.
If, on the other hand, his proposal is part of a strategy to advance the peace process by setting up a national unity government with the Labor Party, then the current crisis may trigger a breakthrough.
Clinton was taking no chances. Cool to the idea of jumping to final-status talks, he urged Israel and the Palestinians to take confidence-building measures and to solve their current conflicts first.
“It’s important not to jump the gun” on moving to the final-status talks, Clinton said.
“The first thing we have to do is get the process going again,” he added. “There is a pre-existing process. I think it’s important that we not put form over substance here.”
Under the Israeli-Palestinian agreements known as the Oslo Accords, the final-status talks were slated to begin in earnest last month and be concluded by 1999. In the meantime, Israel was to carry out three redeployments from West Bank rural areas.
But the process hit a logjam after Israel began building a Jewish neighborhood in eastern Jerusalem, and decided on a first redeployment that the Palestinians called paltry.
Now, amid three weeks of bloody rioting in the West Bank reminiscent of the intifada, the Palestinians insist they will not return to the talks until Israel stops building Har Homa.
In the worst violence yet, two Palestinians were killed and more than 100 wounded Tuesday in clashes with Israeli troops and settlers in Hebron. Five Israeli border police and Israel Defense Force troops were lightly wounded.
The clashes were sparked by the shooting death of another Arab in Hebron earlier in the day by two Jewish seminary students, who said the Arab had sprayed them with a chemical.
Police questioned the students, and confirmed they had been burned by a chemical. Palestinians called the killing unprovoked, and militants joined the funeral procession for the dead Palestinian.
Israel is demanding, in the wake of last month’s suicide bombing at a Tel Aviv cafe, a clear commitment by Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat to end terror. That’s one Israeli policy Clinton clearly supports.
“No one should have to bargain to be free from terrorism,” Clinton said before meeting with Netanyahu. “It’s a precondition.”
Meanwhile, many — including the Palestinians — are speculating about Netanyahu’s intentions.
Those who view the final-status proposal as a publicity stunt say Knesset members from Likud and the National Religious Party, and others who have been among the harshest critics of the Oslo process, are suddenly embracing Netanyahu’s plan.
Those skeptical of Netanyahu’s aims say the hardliners believe no compromise is possible on the permanent-status issues: Jerusalem, borders, settlements, refugees’ rights. Hardliners hope such talks will bring permanent deadlock and end the very process they oppose.
During a visit to the Bay Area last year, Jerusalem Post editor Dan Izenberg said speculation was rife that Netanyahu hoped to plow into the final-status talks as a way to destroy the peace process once and for all.
Even if Netanyahu truly believes his proposal will advance the peace process, his ability to form a unity government to implement it nevertheless may be hindered by rivalries within the Labor Party.
While Shimon Peres, Labor’s leader, is the most energetic backer of the unity option, his likely successor as party leader — former Foreign Minister Ehud Barak — is opposed to it.
So is Yossi Beilin, the second-leading Labor leader candidate, who was long Peres’ acolyte. Of the four contenders for party leadership, only former Health Minister Ephraim Sneh supports Peres’ unity efforts.
The Labor leadership election, scheduled for June 3, looms as a deadline for Netanyahu. He must decide before then whether to make Labor an offer because afterward the proposition may well be refused.
But, say seasoned observers here, if Barak wins the leadership position, he may prove more agreeable than he appears now to Netanyahu’s overtures. Barak now may consider Peres’ eagerness to lead Labor into a unity government as the former premier’s way of hanging onto the party leadership.
Peres, meanwhile, has said he will not join a unity government until the conclusion of an ongoing police investigation into alleged improprieties surrounding the abortive January appointment of a new attorney general.
In terms of substantive policy considerations, neither Barak nor Beilin is opposed in principle to moving directly into permanent-status talks.
Beilin, though he was the principal Israeli negotiator of the Oslo Accords, was never personally or ideologically committed to their phased approach. Instead, as he has explained privately, he embraced the idea of a five-year interim period as a tactical means for getting the government of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to approve the Oslo process.
Barak, too, has indicated support for advancing the timetable for the permanent-status talks.
He harbored serious reservations about the original timeframe because it provided for three major Israeli redeployments in rural areas of the West Bank before the permanent-status negotiations were to reach their critical phase.
In Barak’s view — one shared by Netanyahu and other Likud officials, who were then in the opposition — this meant Israel would relinquish the bulk of its territorial assets in advance of the toughest phase of final-status talks.
It would conduct those crucial negotiations, therefore, from a position of weakness.
As premier, Netanyahu’s strategy was to call for a first redeployment that was far less extensive than the Palestinians had been led to expect in earlier negotiations with the previous Labor-led government.
But that decision, which has yet to be implemented, helped trigger the current peace breakdown.
The Palestinians felt betrayed when they realized 2 percent of West Bank land now under Israeli control would be turned over to them in the first redeployment. Another 7 percent now under joint control also was to be transferred to the Palestinian Authority.
For the Palestinians, much as they mistrust Netanyahu, the prospect of an expedited permanent-status settlement led by a Likud prime minister and backed by the broad consensus of a unity government must be appealing.
They know enough about domestic Israeli politics to understand that an agreement achieved on this basis would have the credibility and strength necessary to assure its longevity.
But neither they nor the Labor Party leaders know whether that is what Netanyahu intends.
And neither did Clinton. For the first time in his administration, the president described a meeting with an Israeli prime minister in the frosty diplomatic language usually reserved for sessions that fall short of U.S. goals.
Added Clinton, “We do need to continue the peace process in an honorable way that will bring it to an honorable conclusion.”
Then Netanyahu turned to familiar territory — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — for support. He found comfort in the cheers of some 2,000 U.S. Jews attending the pro-Israel lobby’s policy conference, and from the group’s plans to mobilize behind his peace process strategy and hard line against terrorism.
“We will never accept terrorism. Nothing justifies terrorism. Nothing. Period,” Netanyahu said.
While Clinton and Netanyahu differed on peace process strategy, Gore used his AIPAC address to reiterate that U.S. support for Israel runs deeper than the current impasse.
“I’m here tonight to declare that during this complex period, in which the Israeli people continue to take meaningful risks every day in search of peace, this administration will never let Israel down,” said Gore in a speech filled with Hebrew phrases and prayers.
For now, however, the United States and Israel appear far apart on strategy to get the peace process back on track.